Finovate Debuts: Moonraft Innovation Labs

Finovate Debuts: Moonraft Innovation Labs

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Not a stranger to banks’ needs, Moonraft Innovation Labs spent six years in partnership with financial institutions across the globe to help them deliver an enhanced customer experience. During this time the company realized how banks struggle to keep up with the pace of customer expectations in innovation.

To begin his demo at FinovateFall 2016 in New York, Aveejeet Palit, Chief Strategy Officer explained that when banks launch a new innovation, it is often “dead on arrival” because customer expectations have already evolved. The result, Palit explains, is that the bank is always trying to catch up, needing to continually invest in the long design and development cycle.

This discovery led to the launch of Catamera, a platform that aims to help banks speed their pace of innovation to keep up with ever-evolving customer expectations. Palit described Catamera as, “a library of web components which can help you quickly put together an experience you would like… and also help you innovate and evolve at the pace your customers want.” Catamera makes it easy for banks to design and create a user experience with drag-and-drop features. Furthermore, it requires no special IT skills. The widgets library offers pre-built tools, such as PFM and a retirement planner, that connect to the banks’ back end APIs.

29615982962_243a5fdfba_kAveejeet Palit (Chief Strategy Officer) and Sreekumar Paramu (CEO & Co-Founder, Americas) demo Moonraft Innovation Labs’ Catamera at FinovateFall 2016

screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-10-46-16-amAfter the conference we caught up with Sreekumar Paramu (who goes by Sree), the company’s CEO & co-founder, Americas to discuss Catamera in more detail.

Finovate: What problem does Moonraft Innovation Labs solve?

Sree: Banks across the globe are struggling to keep pace with the speed of evolution of customer demands. Long design and development cycles mean that by the time banks are ready with a particular offering, the customer has moved on to something else. Catamera aims to address this problem by enabling banks to create amazing user experiences in a very short time, by leveraging our well designed, integration ready web components

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Sree: Our primary customers are small to mid sized banks & credit unions who cannot afford long design and development cycles, yet need to deliver great digital experiences to their customers. However all banks irrespective of big or small would benefit from the use of Catamera

Finovate: How does Moonraft Innovation Labs solve the problem better?

Sree: Most experience platforms are tightly coupled to heavy technology systems that increase the complexity of dealing with it. Catamera is completely decoupled from the bank’s backend technology systems, thereby drastically enhancing the speed of launch and delivery. On top of that, our comprehensive web component library and easy to use builder platform makes designing experiences very simple and intuitive.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Sree: As an organization, Moonraft Innovation Labs has worked with more than 20 large banks globally in designing their digital banking experiences. This vast experience has exposed us to the challenges faced by banks as mentioned earlier. Our product Catamera has been born out of the insights from all these challenges in working with global banks. Also the current trend of moving towards API/Micro-service driven solutions, will make Catamera a very useful tool for innovation, for the entire banking sector.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Moonraft Innovation Labs that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Sree: We are in the final stages of partnership with leading core banking, e-banking technology providers to partner and go to market. We are also in advanced stages of talks with multiple credit unions and small banks in the US for live deployments of the product.

Finovate: Where do you see Moonraft Innovation Labs a year or two from now?

Sree: We see Catamera leading the way for customer experience innovations for banks all over the world. Key trends that are supporting us are the API/Micro-services movement, and the urge for banks to decouple experience innovation from their core systems. In the process, we are confident of owning a significant market share, especially in the small banks and credit unions.


Aveejeet Palit (Chief Strategy Officer) and Sreekumar Paramu (CEO & Co-Founder, Americas) demo Moonraft Innovation Labs’ Catamera at FinovateFall 2016

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Finovate Debuts: Moonraft Innovation Labs

Around the web

  • Huron Community Bank of Michigan to leverage Insuritas to launch insurance agency.
  • Experian partners with reporting and analytics platform dv01 to enable dv01 clients to access to richer borrower credit attributes.
  • FIS teams with Verifone to enable consumers to pay at the point of sale using loyalty points linked to a credit or debit card.
  • Business Insider names Gusto, App Annie, and BlueVine as 3 startups to bet your career on in 2017.
  • Token announces strategic partnership with VirtusaPolaris.
  • TransferTo to provide bridge linking between EcoCash and Mama Money mobile money services.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Moonraft Innovation Labs

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Moonraft Innovation Labs

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FF2016-Logo-wdate-largeA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on September 8 & 9, 2016. Register today.

Moonraft Innovation Labs launches Catamera, a platform which enables banks to evolve at the pace of changing consumer expectations through faster go-to-market; rapid launch of innovative services; and amazing user experiences.

Features:

  • The latest technology and design trends driving the consumer experience
  • Faster go-to-market through rapid launch of new services
  • Innovative services to ensure that banks stay relevant

Why it’s great
Catamera is a platform which helps banks launch amazing digital experiences and faster go-to-market innovations without being tied down by complex technology systems.Screen Shot 2016-07-29 at 11.43.38 AM

Presenters

Aveejeet Palit, Head, Chief Strategy Officer
Palit is head of strategy and design research for Moonraft. With more than 24 years in the industry, Palit excels in identifying emerging technologies and institutionalizing them within businesses globally.
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Sreekumar Paramu, cofounder; CEO – Americas
Paramu drives innovation at Moonraft. A pioneer in experience design, he has conceived and implemented experience strategy for many global businesses.
LinkedIn

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

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  • Finovate Debuts: Cyberfend’s BotFender Detects Attacks in Real-Time

Around the web

  • TransferWise partners with Raphaels Bank as part of Faster Payments Service integration.
  • Token opens new London office.
  • Trulioo earns top honors for ID verification in 2016 Global RegTech report.
  • Check Point Introduces First Real-Time Zero-Day Protection for Web Browsers
  • P2Binvestor Delivers Biggest Line of Credit Yet at $10 Million
  • CR2 teams up with Diamond Bank to bring next-generation ATM technology to Nigeria.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Ready for a Sneak Peek? How to Best Prepare for FinovateFall

Ready for a Sneak Peek? How to Best Prepare for FinovateFall

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To give you a sense of the many new ideas at the upcoming FinovateFall conference in New York, we’ve launched our Sneak Peek series. Eight companies are featured each week leading up to the 8/9 September event (tickets now available).

In the meantime, here is a quick summary of the 66 announced companies (six more are in stealth mode). It’s a lot to take in; pace yourself!

  • Agreement Express offers an an end-to-end platform that helps traditional financial institutions automate labor-intensive parts of the customer onboarding process to remain compliant while quickly opening customer accounts.
  • Aleo’s marketplace uses e-procurement, e-commerce and supplier financing bundled in a single open platform to offer small and medium enterprises an online procure-to-pay solution.
  • AutoGravity’s mobile-first digital marketplace helps digitally minded customers, looking to buy and finance a vehicle, circumvent the inefficiencies of the auto-financing process by leveraging the full potential of their smartphone.
  • Avoka’s customer-acquisition platform integrates multiple fintech services to help banks, wealth managers and insurers use mobile and digital channels to onboard customers.
  • Backbase offers 60-second onboarding for financial services companies to accelerate customer acquisition with a simple, fast, and seamless omnichannel onboarding journey.
  • Bankjoy offers developers a banking API for a modern, real-time, holistic interface for credit unions and community banks.
  • Bitbond’s automated, international credit-scoring mechanism compares small business-loan applicants from different countries by using machine learning and data from the applicant’s business accounts.
  • Bluescape offers large financial services companies a highly interactive, visually collaborative platform that uses real-time, cloud-based architecture that’s ultra-scalable, all-capturing, and accessible anytime from any device.
  • BondIT offers financial advisers and portfolio managers a data-driven solution that uses machine learning advanced algorithms to manage fixed-income portfolios and solve optimization challenges.
  • brandCrowder has developed an alternative investment platform focusing on branded franchises. It leverages 45+ years of franchise-operations experience to help retail investors finance franchises, helping to bring them to market quicker.
  • Clinc’s mobile, voice-activated personal financial adviser uses artificial intelligence to help consumers get answers to financial questions and tasks.
  • Consdata offers banks and financial institutions a comprehensive platform for e-form management and customer-communication complexities.
  • Currencycloud’s dedicated API services use intelligent APIs to help businesses with the cost, limitations, and boundaries of existing payment infrastructure.
  • Daon bridges convenience and security by offering financial services companies a mobile biometric authentication platform that turns a smartphone into a mobile capture device.
  • Divy’s app and social investing community uses an approachable interface and engaging content to help first-time and emerging investors access direct marketing and financial literacy material.
  • Dynamics offers issuers and their cardholders interactive payment cards and an authorization-based, real-time loyalty processing system.
  • ebankIT’s platform offers financial institution clients an omnichannel experience.
  • Econiq’s Conversation Hub uses color-coded conversations to help bank and insurer frontline staff, and operational management and executives avoid disconnected customer conversations in branches and contact centers.
  • Envestnet | Yodlee offers millennials a solution for measuring financial health and promoting a healthy financial lifestyle.
  • Experian CrossCore is a single platform that helps manage customer identities, fraud-prevention tools, workflows and decision strategies in an easy-to-use and scalable format.
  • EyeVerify’s Eyeprint ID offers banks and other financial services companies eye biometrics via smartphone cameras for convenient, secure and private authentication.
  • Featurespace’s ARIC Engine helps financial services clients spot and prevent fraud attacks in real time using adaptive behavioral analytics.
  • Finicity offers an API for companies to build financial apps.
  • Fiserv helps financial institutions enable social finance by providing customers access to a safe, collaborative bank-secured social funding product.
  • Full Profile uses the blockchain and smart contracts for real-time settlement and reporting of physical agri-commodities to help farmers, buyers, banks and government counter party and credit-risk exposures.
  • FutureVault’s cloud-based filing cabinet helps financial service providers and their clients organize asset documents and accounts using a secure, structured and collaborative B2B2C cloud environment.
  • GainX’s SaaS platform uses decades of market research and leading-edge technology to help large financial institutions overcome innovation and adaption failures.
  • GoodData helps large banks, credit-card processing and insurance companies commercialize and monetize their data using a scalable, manageable and secure platform that is exclusively designed for data products and embedded analytics.
  • iBank Marketing offers millennials a multifunction digital wallet to help them achieve personal goals around life events by using its local eco-system that bridges consumers and small- to medium-sized enterprises.
  • identitii uses tokens and blockchain to help financial institutions with KYC, CTF and AML compliance using an information layer over legacy systems.
  • InSpirAVE’s social e-commerce platform curates advice and financial support from the user’s friends and family, financial institutions, and merchants. It helps multiply savings, for big-ticket purchases for customers who otherwise may not be able to afford them, by placing important goals for life’s special moments within reach, without the crushing burden of debt.
  • KORE’s platform transforms enterprise applications, online banking and mobile apps into personalized, conversational engagements to help financial institutions meet customer-experience expectations using the power of bots and simplicity of messaging.
  • LendingFront’s lending platform leverages a cloud-based system that furnishes small businesses with capital using their cashflow data.
  • Lidya offers African small- to medium-sized enterprises access to finance using online receivables-based lending and proprietary credit scoring.
  • Liferay’s Digital Experience offers banks a richer understanding of customers by orchestrating personalized customer experiences.
  • M1 Finance places assets held in low-yielding cash accounts into an asset-linked bank account and intuitive investment platform.
  • MapD’s Immerse helps quantitative hedge fund and asset managers query datasets with billions of rows in real-time by applying the parallel processing power of GPUs to the challenges of databases, visualization and analytics.
  • MarketX’s cross-border investment platform helps international investors with the lack of liquidity for U.S. startup shares and limited access to U.S. pre-IPO investment opportunities.
  • ModoPayments offers financial companies a digital payments hub to connect disparate sources of value to diverse destinations using Modo’s COIN technology.
  • Moonraft Innovation Labs helps banks innovate and evolve by rapidly adapting to changing market needs using Catamera, its unique customer experience delivery framework.
  • Moven’s growing platform reaches the millennial, mobile first, digital native audience by bringing banking (specifically savings) into the moment.
  • MX helps financial institutions become true advocates for their account holders by using analytics to power a revolutionary category of data-driven money management.
  • nanoPay offers a payments and loyalty solution for merchants.
  • Overbond’s digital platform offers transparency, efficiency, and liquidity in the fixed income market for corporate issuers, investors, and dealers.
  • Personetics offers financial services providers a digital personalization platform that uses real-time, ultra-scalable predictive analytics to keep customers engaged in the digital age.
  • ProActive FinTech uses a phone app and debit card featuring unlimited mini bank accounts and pre-purchase categorization to help millennial moms with cash-flow management.
  • QE Data offers commercial banking systems a real-time predictive model for net cash-flows that uses machine learning, rich visualization, speedy deployment and real-world banking experience.
  • Qumram uses 100% real-time, video-like recording of every mouse movement, keystroke and button click to help financial services organizations with compliance and transparency issues relating to digital business.
  • RightCapital’s financial and tax-planning platform helps advisers deliver unbundled, quality financial planning and tax-planning services. It works to efficiently and digitally help consumers with the lack of viable business and technology solutions.
  • SaleMove offers financial institutions a live engagement platform to help sell and service complex financial services products online. The platform uses instant video chat and guided browsing with no downloads or installations.
  • Sindeo’s self-directed consumer rate quote and prequalification tool simplifies home financing and refinancing using an integrated platform that offers consumer, real estate partner, and adviser tools that conform to CFPB regulation and ensure a simple and easy consumer experience.
  • SpeechPro’s customer onboarding solution offers multichannel access to help CTOs, developers and other technologists focus on KYC, identity and verification.
  • Swych’s mobile gifting platform offers gift-card recipients a better way to buy, gift, and manage gift cards.
  • Tango Card’s RaaS API 2.0 uses simple-yet-complete delivery technology and domain expertise to help enterprises deliver incentives efficiently and effectively.
  • TokBox’s Financial Services Accelerator Pack offers banks and financial organizations secure and easy-to-embed, real-time communications technology.
  • TransUnion’s interactive data-visualization solution uses big data and analytics to connect and interpret consumer financial data for lenders.
  • Trulioo’s GlobalGateway uses traditional and cyber ID data sources to offer banks, financial services providers, and online marketplaces secure access to reliable, global data sources for instant ID-verification.
  • Trusona’s anti-replay and TruToken technology offers an insured identity platform for sensitive assets.
  • Unbill’s API enables companies to offer bill pay in their app or technology platform without complicated integration or high costs.
  • Uniken’s REL-ID, a card-not-present approval solution, uses mobile API tool kits and DMZ software appliances to help enterprises secure mobile communications.
  • Urban FT’s enhanced, white-label digital banking platform gives financial services organizations, wireless carriers, and other consumer-facing organizations a long-term, competitive advantage that makes their brand integral to customers’ daily financial and online social activities, financial tools, and social features.
  • Xentral Station’s supply-chain funding app helps vendors of all sizes receive cash for trade financing within 24 hours.
  • Zenmonics uses a single, common platform to help banks and their customers minimize friction in customer engagement with channelUNITED.
  • Zooz offers an agnostic, cross-border payments platform to help merchants act on payment processes and save money to maintain their client base.

Stay tuned on the blog for more detailed descriptions. And don’t forget to register now to reserve your spot.